Roaring

by Lindsey Duga

  When I knew she wasn’t going to, I asked for her. “What am I doing in a drum, then?”

  She nodded.

  Placing my elbow on the shiny red wood surface, I leaned forward just a smidge more—close enough that I could see the few light moles across her clavicle and trailing up her neck. “I heard news of a canary singing in this speakeasy that I just had to hear. You heard tell of such a creature?”

  Her big eyes widened and her hands twitched on the edge of the bar.

  Great. That probably scared her. Good going, Clemmons.

  I needed to take off before she got too skittish. With a rap of my knuckles on the wood, I gave her a smile. “Well, if you know of her, will you tell her this cat would dearly love to hear her sing?” Then I reached into my pocket and dropped a quarter onto the bar. The coin spun, whirring round and round until it finally rested. Heads up.

  Tipping my hat to her, I grabbed my jacket and flipped it over my shoulder, heading out into the crisp fall air.

  I let the chill ripple over the exposed skin of my neck and forearms. My skin was always hot to the touch so autumn and winter were my favorite times of the year. The cold chased out the muddy scents of summer in the city and left a sort of freshness—for at least a brief time— before smoke from chimneys and fires would thicken the air.

  Agitation stirred in my chest like I’d swallowed three shots of burning fire whiskey. I was leaving empty-handed yet again. But the girl was good. It would take more than a few suave smiles and charming words to get anything out of her.

  For a moment, I considered going back inside. Just taking my chances and grabbing her then and there. But…I remembered the serene look on her face as she listened to the jazz, and her full smile and rosy cheeks.

  The spots between my shoulder blades ached and my throat seared with a burning itch.

  Don’t bring her into this world if you don’t have to.

  Be sure. Be one hundred percent. Find proof.

  McCarney would want that, I told myself.

  I moved away from The Blind Dragon’s door and kept walking.

  The street that the speakeasy resided on was nondescript, as were the streets of most. Under an unmarked door, to the left of the fire escape and to the right of the tall pile of crates that never moved. The entrance was a storage room of the pharmacy storefront off the main thoroughfare, but a hidden lever opened the narrow wall, allowing passage to the land of gin and rebellion.

  There were a hundred more like it. The fact that Sawyer had found this one, had chosen to wander into this drum where the lost siren worked, was nothing short of a God-ordained miracle.

  Or it would be, if I believed in Him.

  Strolling down the street, two blocks over, I stopped. The sound of my footsteps halted, but the whisper of leaves on the pavement traveled on in a continuous shuffle.

  Turning my head to the side, my chin brushing my shirt collar, I asked the empty street, “You going to just follow me all night, Sawyer?”

  A sharp-dressed man in a navy-blue suit, trench coat, and fedora stepped out from the alley behind me, his gloved hands in his pockets.

  “If you knew I was here you could’ve mentioned something earlier and saved me the trouble of tryin’ to be discreet.”

  “Maybe I just realized you was there.” I tried mocking his Brooklyn accent to make me sound more confident than I was. The truth was I hadn’t noticed he was there until half a block ago.

  Sawyer closed the distance between us, his green eyes boring into mine. “Cut the shite, Colt.” His fury was evident, punctuated by the way his black pupils narrowed to slits. “Let’sss just get to your hotel. I’m freezing out here.”

  The hiss in his words was just barely detectable. He hid it less when he was cold. Basilisks, like any other snake, hated the cold—even though locals would call the night warm for an October in Massachusetts.

  We walked in silence for the next few blocks. The hotel I’d chosen the day before wasn’t as bad as a flophouse, where transient men stayed and fleas permanently took up residence, but it wasn’t the Ritz Carlton, neither. The hotel was three stories, wedged on the outskirts of the financial district, just a hop, skip, and a jump from Cambridge and Harvard. It was all red brick, so indicative of Boston.

  We passed the sleeping doorman and crossed the oak wood floors, recently waxed and shined from a cleaning company I’d seen the day I’d checked in. The color palette of the interior was dark hues—crimson and plum—highlighted only by gilded gold handrails up the banister. The chandelier hung to the right of the staircase—glass, not crystal. Pretty, but cheap.

  My room was at the end of a red-carpeted hall with the brass number 207 affixed to the door. I withdrew my key from my pocket and unlocked the door while Sawyer hung back. The door swung open with a click. The scent of freshly washed sheets, must, and coal hung thick in the air, and I was tempted to open the window. But Sawyer would snap at me if I did.

  As I tossed my coat onto the one empty chair, I turned around to find Sawyer already pulling off his gloves, flexing his hands. The scales on the back of his hands shone in the dim light of the ceiling fixture. Golden glimmer on green and blue tones made his skin look like an evening gown.

  He would slug me if he knew I often compared his scales to sequins on a woman’s dress.

  Even more, I couldn’t imagine the discomfort he had, wearing those gloves day in and day out, having the leather or cotton rub against his scales. But he kept his coat and hat on. Clearly the stuffy room was still too cold for his reptilian body.

  “What’s taking ya so long?” Sawyer asked, his eyes back to their normal round pupils as he rubbed his hands together and blew on his aquamarine fingers. “Don’t tell me just because this kitten is a choice bit of calico that you’re hesitating—”

  “Take it easy,” I said, throwing myself down on the bed and stretching out my muscles. I ached from sitting in the small, rickety chair all night. “I don’t care what her face looks like. She could be Clara Bow herself and I’d still haul her in. I’ve gotta confirm it’s really her.”

  “It’s her.” He tsked, forked tongue flickering behind sharp teeth. “You don’t believe me.”

  “I believe you saw something,” I said quietly, staring up at the water-stained ceiling, “but I’m not taking her in until I’ve seen for myself what she can do.”

  “Dammit, Colt,” Sawyer growled. “This isn’t some werewolf or manticore you can fill with a bunch of lead and call it a day, this is the siren. The only creature capable of—”

  “You don’t have to tell me what monsters are capable of.” I glared across the room at the snake leaning against the wall, fedora tipped back to reveal his pale face. “Now, if all you’re gonna do is stand there and nag me, go chase yourself. I’m tired.”

  “I thought you don’t sleep.”

  “There’s a difference between needing sleep and needing rest. Get out.” When Sawyer still didn’t move, I sat up on my bed and sighed. “What are you doing here anyway? Don’t tell me you’re ignoring an assignment from McCarney to follow me?”

  “It just so happensss I had a job here in Boston before I found the siren.” Sawyer’s pupils narrowed to slits again. “And I’m back to finish it.”

  “What job?” I asked, curious despite myself. It could’ve been literally anything for an SOCD agent, but tracking down another monster was the most likely.

  The world of underground, organized crime was filled with more than just tommy guns, dope peddlers, and booze. It had real, honest-to-God monsters.

  It all started nine years ago with the Ninth Amendment. Prohibition had given birth to mob bosses. Mob bosses wanted hatchet men—their own personal armies to protect territories and neighborhoods—but somewhere down the line they decided that wasn’t enough.

  It was hard to pinpoint the origin of the monster trade. Where
it started, who had started it, and how it started was all a mystery.

  Oh, there were rumors, of course. The BOI had spent a lot of cash and manpower to try to locate the origin and stop the monster trade at its source. Some claimed it started overseas, smuggled in through the docks, in the birthplace of the myths themselves. Greece, Transylvania, England…but the countries were too old, too vast, too ancient to follow any solid leads.

  All we could do was hunt the ones we knew existed. The ones that went bump, chomp, roar in the night.

  Shortly after J. Edgar Hoover took over the Bureau, the SOCD was set up to specifically hunt these monsters. But many—too many—stiffs washed up on the shores of the Potomac, the Hudson, and Lake Michigan, all with special kinds of markings—the supernatural kind.

  Soon, the Bureau found that the best way to hunt monsters was with monsters.

  Sawyer was one such hunter. A monster himself, burdened with the scales of a basilisk, he was able to kill a person with a single gaze, if he held it long enough.

  Sawyer nudged his hat up, fixing me with those deadly eyes, and answered in a low tone, “A bootlegger I’m after is smuggling vamp fangs into the docks, unloading them in some speakeasy. Just have to find out which one. Then I’m off to New York.”

  I perked up. “What for?”

  “Apparently kids are disappearing off the streets and from orphanages. The BOI doesn’t know if it’s monster-related, but they need some extra eyes and ears to keep low to the ground.”

  Kids missing? That wasn’t abnormal. So it had to be a lot of kids to get the BOI’s attention. “Sounds important,” I muttered.

  “It is,” he snapped.

  “Then I won’t keep you,” I said drily. Sawyer acted tough, but in reality he was one of the softer agents. He’d escaped a mob boss in Brooklyn at twelve because he hadn’t had the stomach or desire to use his curse. He didn’t want to kill anyone.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was one—the bastard that buried the basilisk’s scales into his arms at the age of seventeen. Jimmy Sawyer’s only goal in life was to find the mob boss that turned him. Find him and stare him in the eyes.

  Sawyer crossed to the bed and used his scaly hand to grip my collar, forcing my face to meet his. “I know what I saw. I know what I heard. And felt. She stopped that bullet. She stopped everything. All at once. Don’t wait for her to speak, Colt, because if she does, it may be the last thing you ever hear.”

  Chapter Five

  The Singer

  The third night the stranger came around I’d already been looking for him for a couple hours. It seemed like every time the door opened and Stan would check on the number of patrons in the Dragon, either letting them in or turning them away, I would look up.

  And hope.

  It was so odd. I’d never been intrigued by someone quite like this before. True, I was still a little scared, but more scared of myself around him. Several times I almost slipped, desperate to answer his questions and to ask him mine in return.

  He was unique—unlike any man I’d ever encountered before. He’d never heard me sing, so there was no effect of my gift whatsoever on him. His interest in me was just that of a guy to a gal. And it made me feel…special.

  Like when he told me he wanted to hear me sing. For the first time, I wanted to sing for someone else.

  It was then I knew that he was a story I desperately wanted to finish.

  But the hour crept on later, and I began to wonder if he was ever going to come again. That frustrated me. Would I never get to know the story’s ending?

  “Eris.”

  I jumped at my name and turned sharply to the left, abandoning the glass that was already clean three times over. I’d been watching the door again. For the eighth time that night.

  David stood across the bar, staring at me with his eyebrow quirked inquisitively. He retrieved a folded Time magazine out of his back pocket and laid it on the bar. The cover was a portrait of a dark-haired man in a fancy suit with the words, “American Royalty: Stocks, the New Gold.” David flipped past the profile on the important businessman to an article with a picture of rolling gold hills. The title read, “California, the Paradise Found.”

  Unable to stop myself, I grabbed the magazine and scanned the text. I already couldn’t wait to read it. If there was one state I’d dreamed of seeing, it was California.

  I peeked up from the top of the magazine to give David my most imploring look.

  The saxophonist just laughed and drummed his fingers on the bar. “Yes, you can keep it. I got it for you, you know.”

  I let out a happy squeal and leaned across the bar to deliver a swift kiss to his cheek in thanks.

  On my shopping trips I was never allowed to dawdle around newsstands, so David and Stanley often brought me magazines with articles they knew I’d like. I’d never told them of my fascination with the West and the rural areas of the country, but then again, I didn’t have to. They’d caught me reading and admiring magazines and newspapers left behind by patrons on more than one occasion.

  Making sure that Madame was nowhere around, I slipped the magazine behind the row of bourbon bottles. I’d add it to my stash later and learn as much as I could about the state, and maybe, maybe, I could work up the courage to ask Madame to go on a trip there. Because there would be no going without her or Stan. They were as much my jailers as they were my protectors. I was kept hidden and locked in this cage that masqueraded as a speakeasy, but they kept me safe. I owed them so much.

  Smiling, David tipped an imaginary hat to me and left to return to his music. Part of me was tempted to join him, but still I stayed safely behind the bar. I told myself this was for the patrons, that they wouldn’t have to feel drunk on my songs in addition to drunk on their giggle water. But in my heart I knew it was an excuse.

  Simply put, I was a coward.

  Just when I thought I’d never see the stranger again, he walked into the bar, same as the night before. Relaxed. Confident. Handsome.

  To the right of me, Madame let out an irritated hiss. I startled at the sound, having not realized the woman had snuck in behind the bar.

  “If he doesn’t order something within the first ten minutes, I want him gone. And you let Stanley handle him, Eris. I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

  Helena Maldu’s voice was low and raspy, hoarse after the few cigs she’d smoked earlier in the evening. It somehow made her sound more powerful and more mysterious than usual, and gooseflesh erupted across my skin.

  I jerked a nod but had never wanted so deeply to disobey.

  Madame Maldu knew what was best for me. So if she didn’t like the way a man looked at me, I should listen to her. And yet this stranger didn’t look at me like others did. His dark eyes, mysterious as they were, were clear, not magicked, nor entranced. Seeing me simply as I was.

  So it was painful, more than I thought it’d be, to turn away as he approached the bar. Stanley stepped up to take my place.

  “What’ll it be, sir?” Stan asked, gripping the edge of the bar and subsequently showing off his rippling muscles.

  “How about some orange pekoe?” the stranger replied casually.

  Stanley paused, caught off guard. “Orange…you want tea?”

  “Yessir.”

  Stanley said nothing. Didn’t even move.

  “Do you…not sell that here? I s’pose I could do a cola instead.”

  “We have it,” Stanley grumbled, his words tumbling out like boulders.

  “That’d be swell, sir.”

  I couldn’t help it—I cast a glance over my shoulder to see the fella smiling up at Stan, all innocent and gentlemanly like. Ordering tea in a speakeasy.

  Stanley turned to me, fixing me with a hard gaze. “Eris, would you—” He paused when he saw I was in the middle of counting change for a table’s tab.


  He scowled at the stranger. “I’ll be right back,” Stanley said, his voice dropping an octave. Then he turned and headed through the curtain, toward the kitchen of Madame Maldu’s home to warm up the kettle and get the tea leaves out.

  After counting the change, I dropped it off at the table of a couple wrapped up in each other. They were a little zozzled, but more drunk on love than anything else.

  I returned to the bar where the stranger sat. My heart pounded wildly.

  “So…” he began in his low timbre as I took up my spot from before, my attention fixed on the tray of dirty glasses I’d just picked up. “Your name is Eris.”

  Reflexively, my gaze lifted to find him watching me with that same half grin. I swallowed and looked down at the glass with the lipstick smudged across the rim.

  There was part of me that was disappointed that our game had been ruined. How silly.

  “It’s a beautiful name,” he said quietly. Gently. “Suits you.”

  Tingles ran down my spine, and I struggled to keep my expression neutral. If I wasn’t mistaken, this stranger had just called me beautiful. Something I’d been called before, but by drunken and often enchanted men.

  “Do you know where it comes from?”

  The question caught me off guard and I almost asked, “where?” but just in time I pursed my lips and shook my head.

  “It’s the name of a Greek goddess.”

  Until then, I’d been dumping the drinks into the small sink, running hot water over the empty glasses. Now I couldn’t help but look up, too fascinated to pretend to be anything but.

  I never knew my name had been derived from anything. Not surprising considering I never knew my real parents. It was just the name I’d had at the orphanage.

  The stranger’s eyes fixed on mine, his dark irises nearly swallowing his pupils so I seemed to be staring into shining plates of obsidian. “You didn’t know?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Then you probably don’t know the origin of the word itself.”

  Again, I shook my head.